My grandfather was the youngest of four boys. I'm amazed they all survived to adulthood, honestly, but he tells some great stories!

- taking turns squeezing each other, Heimlich-style, until they passed out

- mumblety-peg (I thought he was kidding about this game until I found the rules corroborated on Wikipedia!)

- "the bee game." Apparently there was an undergroung beehive / wasp's nest near their house. The "game" involved covering the hole with a ping-pong paddle and jumping on the ground to get the wasps mad. Then whoever was covering the hole let a wasp out and the first boy had to whack it with a paddle. The second boy got the next one, etc. If someone missed, the next boy was supposed to get them both (still with just one swing). The game went until the wasps stopped coming or (more commonly) the boy covering the hole got stung, at which point he'd jump and the paddle over the hole would move and the whole swarm would come out, thirsty for blood. Like I said, a miracle any of them ever made it to adulthood!

My grandfather was the youngest of four boys. I'm amazed they all survived to adulthood, honestly, but he tells some great stories!

That reminds me of some of my grandfather's stories. Unfortunately, my memory is a little rusty, but there was one where on a dare he pushed the outhouse so it slid down the hill it was on. Only, his father was in it at the time. Which he and his siblings didn't realize until the door flew open to reveal one very unhappy person.

The other one I remember was that my grandfather and his brothers got their grubby little paws on a firecracker, opened it up and put some of the contents into their father's pipe. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt. Just astonished.

I was forever getting in trouble for wandering off, to be found chatting to random people - in shopping centres, hospitals - anywhere really. But the one thing my mother still shakes her head at is my solo bus trip - at age 4. We were visiting family in the UK and my mum and aunt had taken me shopping in the nearby town.I wandered out of the shop, and started talking to a man at the bus stop...and then followed him onto the bus! It was only after the guy got off the bus alone that the bus driver realised I was still there, and brought me back (maybe a few kilometres) at the bus stop was my frantic aunt, and very, VERY angry mother. I was in a pram the rest of the trip. Oh the indignity of not being able to walk as a four year old! my brother says I was very embarrassed.

So one day young SunshineMom was riding her bike (she was about five or so) and she decided it would be an incredibly fun thing to ride her bike off of the side of the porch. Yeah... cue trip to the hospital where SunshineMom had to get stitches. They got her home, and the next day, (or was it the next week?) adventurous SunshineMom decided that riding her bike off of the porch had been fun. She did it again. In the end my grandmother and grandfather ended up sticking a football helmet on their adventurous little daughters head, knowing she wouldn't harm herself if she decided to take a dive off of the porch for a fourth (maybe third, i can't remember) time.

Mom was in the hospital for pneumonia repeatedly1. time she heard the priest say you couldn't survive pneumonia x times. She decided if she was going to die, she was going to ride an elevator first. So she left her room in her dressing gown and slippers got into the elevator and rode up and down - until a neighbor looking out her window saw this small figure in the elelvator - which was a cage on the outside of the building going up and down and called the nurse's station. This was in the middle of a Canadian winter.

2. Uncle Press (The doctor) stopped by and told Mom he was going to send her home that day. Nurse went into the room a little later to help her pack up. Mom was gone, mom's suit case was gone. Nurse calls Nanna and says, "Peg look out your window and see if you see Gerry. Press told her she could go home today and she left." Sure enough Mom was walking down the road (with street clothes, and winter coat, boots etc) home.

Dad - In the 1950's they shut down the public pools in the summer to prevent the spread of polio. So Dad and his friends went swimming the the bayous - Yuck Yuck Yuck

Sis - was in Kinder, I was in 4th. The bully that made my life miserable tried to take on sis. She told him "I'm not scared of you. I'll knock your teeth out if you touch me and no one is going to get mad at a 5 yo for fighting with a 9 yo." By the time the secertary got into the hallway Sis was chasing bully down the hall - holding something (sis says she just grabbed something that was in the hallway) like a baseball bat. (Sis was right she didn't get into trouble.)

Me - There was a neighborhood dust up. I caught a boy a year younger than me (but bigger), sitting on sis punching her in the face. I pulled him off of her and gave him a black eye. His mom brought him back down to our house and demanded I be punished for hitting him. Dad questioned sis, cousin c, and me. He showed angry Mom sis's bruises. She insisted that we be punished. Dad told her to get off our property.

I was doing my homework and heard a scream from a front yard. I saw Steven (2 years younger than me but again bigger) attacking Erica. (6 years younger than me - 4 years younger than Stephen and small for her age). I flew out the front door screaming for Mom. I tackled Steven knocking him off Erica. Sis and Mom grabbed Erica and got her inside. I hit him a couple of times and pushed him away from me so I could retreat inside. Dad got home and the whole family trooped over and demanded I be punished for "attacking their son" It was ok for him to attack Erica (insert very bigoted reason basically this child killed Jesus) but I should have submitted to him because I was a girl. Dad told them to NEVER step foot on our property again. (My parents tried to get Erica's parents to press criminal charges but they were afraid upsetting neighbors about kid stuff)

I never did figure out what religion these people practiced but I stayed as far way from them as possible. (Both households practiced the same religion). Girls were supposed to let boys beat them up - and any type of imagination games/fiction books were going to send you to hell. So was my short hair.